JAC’s Board of Directors

If you believe in our work and would like to be considered for a seat on our Board, please click here to learn more.

Casper Cendre, Secretary

Casper Cendre, the accidental ringmaster of A.B.O. Comix circus, stumbled into the director’s chair while trying to find the exit. As a first-gen trans masculine artist and editor, he co-founded this chaotic carnival in 2017, where over 600 currently and formerly incarcerated members wonder how they ended up in this wild ride. Casper, the self-proclaimed ghost host with the most, also sleep-talks on the Teleway 411 podcast that features tales of queer/trans artists in prison. While desperately trying not to get lost in his haunted 3-story former-cinema HQ, he lives on the fringe of gender identity somewhere between “What am I doing?” and “Did I leave the air fryer on?” Casper is often found hiding from existential crises with his trusty sidekick felines, Binx and Felix. His afterlife mission? Documenting the absurdity of Homo sapiens while sipping on 10 fl oz juice pouches with 4.5% alc/vol and contemplating whether galaxy projectors are the key to the next dimension. All this, and he still manages to be the lesser-talented half of the duo, married to the mortician extraordinaire at Never Mortuary. Casper is excited to bring his commitment to unintentional comedy and paint-splattered overalls to the board of JAC: an organization he has loved and admired from the sidelines for approximately 11.28 Martian years.

Susan Justiniano – Executive Committee Member

Susan is a poet, writer, teaching artist, advocate and community leader. She has been involved in nonprofit boards since 2018, first with the Jersey City Arts Council. She serves as board member of In Full Color, Vice President of WordSeed Inc, Co-Chair of EDI for Bergen County Players, and various committees for Paterson Performing Arts Development Council, Jersey City Puerto Rican Heritage, Arts and Culture, ArtPride New Jersey, Hudson County Community College Language Collective and Hudson County Chamber of Commerce.

Susan founded Just ADD Sound in 2009, RescuePoetix in 2011, House on the Waterfront (MD), Everything is a Story Podcast, Open Road Poetry, all of which have provided opportunities to expand her experience in large scale event planning, marketing and promotions, organizational structure, developing and creating policies, community outreach, extensive written communications and fundraising.

As a person who has been impacted by the incarceration of loved ones and who has worked with at risk youth and reentry organizations, it seemed like joining JAC’s board was a natural path to discover how her experiences and expertise fit to meet the needs of the organization to further its commitment of social justice, equity, representation, and accessibility for all. These goals are in line with her personal and professional vision, through art, practice, and community.

Kimberly Nelson, Treasurer

Individual and community well-being are Kimberly’s passion, and have served as the guideposts for her career. Her skills as a coach combined with deep experience in community-based programming has equipped her with a profound understanding of what makes people, programs, and organizations thrive. With a natural inclination towards learning, growth, and development, Kimberly approaches her work with a unique blend of empathy and analytical insight and seeks to contribute to the healing, growth and evolution of society. She is deeply committed to leveraging her gifts, skills, and expertise to create alternative pathways to redemption for those impacted by the carceral system. 

JAC’s Advisory Council

We are still in the process of building our Advisory Council. If you believe in our work and would like to serve as an Advisor, please contact info@thejusticeartscoalition.org.

Spoon Jackson

“I’ve found my niche in life despite being in prison for 42 years. I have found that prisons are created internally and are truly found everywhere. I have also discovered that the secrets to break down prison walls are inside each person and I treasure sharing this realness with people. I keep my light glowing through expressing my inner thoughts, vibes and feelings in my poetry and prose writing.”

John R. Whitman, PhD

John is the Director and Executive Producer of Camisary, Inc., co-founded the Museum for Black Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Washington, DC, and taught in graduate schools at American University, Babson College, Georgetown University, Harvard University, Northeastern University, and The University of Alabama in Huntsville. John’s photographs have been purchased byThe National Geographic Magazine and other publications. He is co-author of Understanding the Social Economy of the United States (University of Toronto, 2015) and Delivering Satisfaction and Service Quality (American Library Association, 2001), has published chapters in textbooks on entrepreneurship and law, including in Intellectual Property, Entrepreneurship, and Social Justice (Elgar, 2015), and authored scholarly articles published in peer reviewed journals. He has a BA from Boston University, EdM from Harvard University, and PhD from the University of Toronto.

Aimee Wissman

“Incarceration was a catalyst for change in my life. I became a self-taught artist inside, and spent my years building an art therapy program that still runs in D.C.I. today.

Since my release, I have networked relentlessly behind the principles of arts access and opportunity for those who are currently or formerly incarcerated. I am the curator for the Ohio Prison Arts Connection and I created the Returning Artists Guild in 2019. The guild is a network of 25 (and growing) currently and formerly incarcerated artists.

The Returning Artists Guild is the way that I am creating solutions for artists in re-entry with other artists in re-entry. As an artist, I have struggled internally working within the context of the system, even in the arts, because my heart belongs to prison abolitionism. However, I have chosen to continue the work and my goal is not to change everyone’s mind about prison. My goals are more practical: to provide arts access, exhibition opportunities, and a community for incarcerated artists to come home to. For the artists in re-entry, I’m providing a platform, a community, entrepreneurship, exhibition, professional development, workshops, and networking opportunities. If the resources we need exist, I’ll find them; if they don’t exist, I’ll create them.”

Matt Malyon

Matt Malyon is a writer, teacher, and jail chaplain living in Washington’s Skagit Valley. In 2015 he founded Underground Writing, a creative writing program serving migrant, incarcerated, recovery, and other at-risk communities through literary engagement and personal restoration. Matt is also the Founder of One Year Writing in the Margins, an initiative “challenging teachers and writers to spend one year facilitating creative writing workshops outside the academy, in at-risk communities, where the transforming powers of reading and writing can be a matter of life and death”.

Laurie Brooks

A ceramics artist who has headed the William James Association since 2001, Laurie has facilitated Arts-in-Corrections programs for incarcerated men, women and youth since 1989. Collaborating with the California Arts Council and others during the 1990’s, she facilitated the development of programs for the California Youth Authority and Arts in Mental Health. Over the past 15 years, she has worked successfully with the National Endowment for the Arts’ Office of Accessibility to establish artist-in-residence programs with five facilities run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. She has a degree in Economics and Community Studies from UC-Santa Cruz and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County.

Marc Mauer

Marc Mauer, Executive Director of The Sentencing Project, is one of the country’s leading experts on sentencing policy, race and the criminal justice system.  He has directed programs on criminal justice policy reform for 40 years, and is the author of some of the most widely-cited reports and publications in the field.  The Atlantic magazine has described him as a scholar who has “reframed how Americans view crime, race, and poverty in the public sphere.” His 1995 report on racial disparity and the criminal justice system led the New York Times to editorialize that the report “should set off alarm bells from the White House to city halls – and help reverse the notion that we can incarcerate our way out of fundamental social problems.” In 2018 Mauer was named a “Frederick Douglass 200” awardee as one of 200 individuals “who best embody the spirit and work of Frederick Douglass.” Race to Incarcerate, Mauer’s groundbreaking book on how sentencing policies led to the explosive expansion of the U.S. prison population, was a semifinalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award in 1999.  A second edition was published in 2006 and a 2013 graphic novel version was cited by the American Library Association as one of the “Great Graphic Novels” of the year.  Mauer is also the co-editor of Invisible Punishment, a 2002 collection of essays by prominent criminal justice experts on the social cost of imprisonment, and co-author of The Meaning of Life: The Case for Abolishing Life Sentences.

Lateef Mtima

Lateef Mtima is a Professor of Law at the Howard University School of Law. After graduating with honors from Amherst College, Professor Mtima received his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, where he was the co-founder and later editor-in-chief of the Harvard BlackLetter Journal. Mtima is the Founder and Director of the Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice, an accredited Non-governmental Organization Member of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Carole Alden

Carole Alden was born 1960 in Orleans, France to American parents, and grew up primarily in northern ldaho and Colorado. Her dad was a forestry professor and mother a librarian. Nature and self education were the things she was exposed to the most as a child. They continue to guide the majority of her work. Carole married young and had five children from two marriages that spanned twenty years. She has no formal education nor art training beyond high school. Drawing was something she took up in prison. Prior to that, Carole was a fiber artist with pieces in multiple museum collections. She taught herself to crochet while incarcerated and continues to create a variety of sculptures and wall hangings for venues ranging from political to natural.

Chris Wilson

Born and raised in Washington D.C, Chris grew up under extremely difficult circumstances. Poverty, drug addiction, and gun violence was the everyday norm in his community. At the age of 17, he was charged with a crime, convicted, and sentenced to natural life in prison. It was during times of isolation that he decided to not only to turn his life around, but to make a difference in the lives of people who currently live in poverty-stricken communities similar to his childhood surroundings. “Many years ago, I committed my life to self-improvement and helping others. I sat in a dark cell and wrote up what I now call my Master Plan. A plan to build a business empire and help others.”

Judy Dworin

Judy Dworin is a dance/theater artist and educator who is committed to giving voice and inspiring social action through her work with the Judy Dworin Performance Project (JDPP), which she founded in 1989. JDPP provides award-winning dance/theater performance that speaks to social justice issues through its Ensemble; a noted in-school educational residency program, Moving Matters! and Bridging Boundaries, a comprehensive arts intervention program partnered with social work for those affected by incarceration. Judy is a Professor Emerita at Trinity College, where she established the Dance Program and chaired the Theater and Dance Department for many years. Judy’s year-long performance residency with women at York Correctional Institution over the past 16 years has been the generative seed for the development of a multi-faceted residency outreach to populations affected by incarceration, providing arts engagements to children and youth with parents in prison; York mothers and their children; Cybulski CI Dads and their children; women and men returning home from prison; and, most recently, women in the new W.O.R.T.H. unit at York CI for 18 to 25 year-olds. A 30-minute documentary of JDPP’s prison outreach, Making Me Whole. Prison, Art & Healing was filmed and broadcast by Connecticut Public Television in October 2017 and is available at https://cptv.org/making-me-whole/. 

Steering Committee

The Justice Arts Coalition Steering Committee was launched at the 2015 Arts In Corrections Conference, where approximately 40 people met in two facilitated sessions to discuss the possibility of creating a national network to support the work of organizations and individuals across the field. A group of volunteers formed as the Steering Committee to investigate the needs and benefits of such an organization. Later, the Steering Committee surveyed the field, completed a feasibility study, and laid the groundwork for JAC, which they determined should grow out of the Prison Arts Coalition website. In the years leading up to JAC’s launch, Steering Committee members contributed endless hours, valuable wisdom, and immense amounts of enthusiasm towards its development, and many have continued to do so as advisors, program participants, and Board members.

Members:

Alma Robinson, Executive Director of CA Lawyers for the Arts

Laurie Brooks, Executive Director of the William James Association

Kyes Stevens, Founder/Director of Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project

Curt Tofteland, Founder/Director Shakespeare Behind Bars

Victoria Sammartino, Founder of Voices UnBroken

Ella Turenne, Founder of BlacWomyn Beautiful

Freddy Gutierrez, Teaching Artist at the Artistic Ensemble

Henry Frank, Intern at the William James Association

Jane Golden, Director of Philadelphia Mural Arts

Laura Pecenco, Founding Director of Project PAINT

Beth Thielen, Teaching Artist

Lesley Currier, Founder/Director of Marin Shakespeare

Mary Cohen, Founder/Director of Oakdale Community Choir

Katherine Vockins, Founder/Director of Rehabilitation Through the Arts

Kat Kambes, Director of Operations at Jail Guitar Doors

Wendy Jason, Manager of the Prison Arts Coalition website